World War II from its Contemporaries

Here is a review of the Library of America volume Reporting World War II: American Journalism, 1938-1946. Jake, infamous for his piquant studies on ancient near eastern culture and literature, has about-faced with his submission of this welcome piece. He is steadily churning out reviews (4 to my 1) on TKR, and puts us all to shame. Forthcoming is my own review of Paul Johnson's A History of the American People. - RD

War costs amount to lost husbands, missing body parts, and addled minds. But when books and movies attempt to recast these atrocities, their narrations are stained by the knowledge of later resolution. This collection of World War 2 American journalism, however, paints with deeper hues of grimness and more vivid impressions of reality because the outcome of the war is unknown.

The Library of America has collected many of the best (though I lament the inclusion of Gertrude Stein) eyewitness accounts of World War 2. It predictably begins with scathing editorials about Chamberlin and finishes with the Japanese surrender. And it includes all the stuff in betwixt. Although these events are facts known to any elementary student, the first-hand tales of intrigue, vice and mayhem are told by participants on a day-to-day basis. The Americans who became Nazis, the racial violence in the American military, and the army’s deleterious crawl through the mountains of Italy are described by those who saw the events transpire and by those who were uncertain about the future outcome of their prodigious struggle.

How then does one understand World War II? I invite you to allow the yarns of the participants lead you onto the gothic path of uncertainty. You will see that narrations ignorant to the end of the story paint onto canvases not found on the silver screen. And they are more engrossing too.

- Jake McCarty